The older people already spoke French. “From before.” That was part of their history. Some even spoke Chinese, she was certain. But the man on the corner taught her new dialects and better French. She was a fast learner. Dr. Bread-baker also taught her algebra, her favorite because she was always seeking the mystery of x. It was the important factor in her life where everything was missing, lost, and sought-after. She was always searching, this young woman, this very fast learner he favored.

She looked up the word war and found that it meant confusion more than any other one verb and it was not the noun it was thought to be. It meant hostilities, armed battle. She had never understood why humans did not live in peace, which seemed so easy, so simple compared to war. She asked Dr. Thieu, the baker, and he said he believed it was in the human’s nature to seek power and to have greed. “Even a simple, peaceful woman or man will fight back when they see injustice or when something is taken from them,” he said. “Oh, I have come to believe it is a necklace of skulls, a chain linked together with no clasp, and it is so strong it can’t be broken. Humans are poor, unforgiving animals.”

And so Lin wanted to learn a way to break the chain. Everything must have a weakness somewhere. She was young and she thought, What if there were no injustices, what if there were wisdom?

Lin still asked about her uncle’s address, in vain. One man in English class said, “Oh no, I believe that’s in Hanoi.” It seemed so far away.

She saved her small wages and the tips given by those whose streets she still cleaned, even as a young woman, all the while watching the world grow back and be rebuilt, hearing the sounds of it, a nail at a time, a stone. This money, too, went in a small box and when she received enough coins she changed them to bills, and after a while she needed a second box. She spent little of the money, but now and then she gave some to the children of American fathers. She did buy a goldfish for her room, but soon it ended up sitting on the counter of the little shop. She thought it would be less lonely there. It attracted customers. It reminded her of her father. She could still recall him as he walked toward her, the red goldfish in a white bowl.

For a time after the war everything had been quiet. Too quiet. There were no birds. At first there was not even a breeze, as if the wind had gone to another part of the world. And when it was most silent, Lin remembered that her father became the wind. In every breeze that touched her.

Against the old woman’s rules, Lin’s body began to curve and swell. And now, whenever she could, she also worked in an office where people went to search for their families. At first she volunteered.